Multiple factors point to a successful 2024 for the oil and gas industry, with many betting on niche services. With the drive to enhance current services and increase efficiency, the service sector alone is well-positioned to prosper. Offering the best in service and beating the competition will secure business and establish relationships. Still, the critical component of the equation is finding that particular service or meeting that individual need that levies such a magnitude of success in driving up profits that the end user can only function with it.

Gary Griesenbeck, CEO of Orion Water Solutions, discovered the secret to success early when starting his company in 2016. Competing in the emerging market, Orion treats produced water generated through hydraulic fracturing, a staple to North American shales success. During the earlier years of operation, fracking, as hydraulic fracturing is commonly called, demanded massive quantities of fresh water to be used during operation. Due to the costs and demand for increasing amounts, science pointed to the potential in treating produced water that returns from the well during fracking.

It was a natural migration from using fresh water to produced water, says Griesenbeck.

No matter the water type used, according to Griesenbeck, it must be chemically treated to ensure safe use during fracking procedures. Bacteria and other components that contaminate frack water can damage the wellbore and cause such financial devastation that oil and gas companies would spend millions without seeing any positive return on the investment.

It is essential to keep naturally occurring bacteria and other contaminants out of the well, says Griesenbeck. We treat 500,000 to 600,000 barrels of water per day.

When considering Orions contribution of treated water per day and pairing that with estimations from other companies and competitors that conduct the same operation, the need to enhance that ability suddenly surfaces as a niche service that ensures increased profits.

Ivan Sager identified the available opportunity and utilized his technical background to establish XPC Water, a company focusing on water chemistry analytics and real-time data alerting. While companies like Orion own their data, the XPC platform acquires, normalizes, assesses and cultivates data to provide valuable insights to the end user, enabling a streamlined approach to managing water treatment.

According to Sager, the XPC platform is a multi-tenant application that uses advanced pattern recognition to categorize water quality and alert the user of critical spikes. Orion refers to its configuration on the platform as remote data visualization (RDV) that provides operators and managers the analytics needed to manage and monitor the injected chemicals before the water is sent downhole and then treat the water as it exits the wellbore called produced water.

Pennies spent on chemicals count when processing massive volumes of water and identifying overdosage or anomalies in the process is critical, says Sager.

Griesenbeck breaks his company service down into two equally essential services. Orion disinfects water going down the wellbore using chlorine dioxide (CLO2) and then treats the produced water through a Dissolvable Air Flotation (DAF) Process. These require a disciplined and focused approach to chemical management. Orion sets up remote processing sites at each fracking location to provide these services. As a result, managing the water chemistry of each specific site proves difficult, and errors can lead to loss of revenue.

XPC Water provides the solution by capturing and monitoring data centrally. The XPC platform records and reports all essential cost and performance data for each job site. This includes downtime, pump failure, and chemical use, which Griesenbeck estimates to be 20 to 30 percent of his sales. XPC provides reports, emails and text messaging that display chemistry data with a barrels per day trend and cost-to-treat data.

This information is essential, says Griesenbeck. A number diverging from the norm signals that something is wrong.

With XPCs ability to provide accurate data that can be managed in real-time, the operator can correctly add chemicals and treat water as needed. This influences chemical usage and provides the ability to refrain from wasting chemicals.

Staying on top of chemical usage greatly enhances efficiency and is often a make or break for operators, says Sager.

While oil and gas companies strive to streamline and refrain from enduring additional costs, when expenditures are made, they are typically costly. Software, automation and further areas of expense demand significant investment, but the XPC platform proves genius in its ability to be integrated with existing systems utilized by the end user.

How Orion generates data that is acquired by XPC has no relevance. Data cultivation is triggered on the XPC side of the equation. As a result, XPCs technology can be integrated with any data processing system.

Our goal is to remove friction and be the bridge to allow secure and rapid data collaboration and collaboration, says Sager. We simply integrate with other platforms. We format the data, and then the customer can import it, or we leverage our open standards Application Programming Interface (API).

Orion can retrieve the XPC data through its hardware compilation. While under habitat with XPC, the information resides in a secure cloud-based environment. Sager says by leveraging the end users existing investments, XPC ensures rapid implementation and profitability.

Technology knows few limitations, and when efficiency can be further improved, a place of necessity is established. Building upon the foundation of what XPC and Orion offer the industry, the company identified another outlet to enhance business needs. XPC is blazing the frontier of artificial intelligence with Chatxpc. This technology will optimize production operations by offering insights into the impact of multiple production parameters and suggesting the optimal production design. Additionally, it will play a role in real-time monitoring of production operations, identifying potential problems, and suggesting appropriate corrective actions.

AI is machine learning algorithms, and that data helps predict spikes and forecast chemical usage, says Sager. Generative AI will allow the operator to generate detailed content from the data that will be used in reports or management of the operations.

According to Sager, the primary advantage of Chatxpc lies in its ability to address technical issues quickly and accurately as they surface. Through its ability to recognize complex terms and concepts, Chatxpc will provide explanations and examples to assist the user in sending or accessing data more quickly.

The XPC technology depicts a robust picture of how it ensures efficiency and its positive fiscal impact can be forecasted in additional business areas. Griesenbeck sees a ne

ed for the XPC platform in multiple areas of the oil and gas industry alone.

The push for remote operations will require technology to support rapid data acquisition and analysis. The XPCs platform enables such a process. Additionally, as oil and gas companies attempt to manage aging infrastructure while constructing new, spill prevention becomes paramount. XPC would offer an invaluable service by providing the means to monitor pipeline levels and a medium for calculating the decrease in pipeline capacity after a spill. Accurate accounting of content
s that contact the earth is critical in managing environmental disasters.

With over 218 million barrels of water, XPC has perfected the niche in enabling efficiency and profitability in water treatment capabilities. With the abundance of possibilities, XPC can impact oil and gas for the greater good of the environment and its users.

Anyone using chemistry can benefit from the XPC platform, says Griesenbeck. Storage facilities, retailers and collection batteries for saltwater could all see ideal results. RDV has improved my profit margin easily by two to three percent.

Headline photo: From left to right: Tee Jay Hayes, Operator, and Anthony Yanez, Field Supervisor, verifying data at a produced water recycling location. Photos courtesy of XPC Water Solutions.

Freelance Writer and Photographer

Nick Vaccaro is a freelance writer and photographer. In addition to providing technical writing services, he is an HSE consultant in the oil and gas industry with twelve years of experience. Vaccaro also contributes to SHALE Oil and Gas Business Magazine, American Oil and Gas Investor, Oil and Gas Investor, Energies Magazine and Louisiana Sportsman Magazine. He has a BA in photojournalism from Loyola University and resides in the New Orleans area. Vaccaro can be reached at 985-966-0957 ornav@vaccarogroupllc.com.

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Good Chemistry Bonds XPC Water with Orion Water Solutions - OILMAN Magazine